The protection of a horse's leg from injury is extremely important. As one can easily understand, the horse's leg is subject to a variety of dangers which include but are not limited to, repetitive shock loads associated with normal movement, the impact of a polo mallet, "run down" caused when the pastern over extends thereby dropping the fetlock into contact with the ground, and wind puffs caused by bulges of collected fluid within the leg.
Trainers and layman alike use many methods to reduce or prevent the foregoing injuries, the most common of which are athletic-wraps and boots. Wraps have the advantage of providing a custom fit because the person who applies the wrap has control of the tightness of the wrap during application on a per revolution basis. In this way support can be placed where each particular horse is most in need and it is easy to compensate for the various leg sizes of different horses. Wraps do, however, have great disadvantages in that they have little if any shock absorbing characteristics. Other disadvantages include the tendency to work loose. If a horse should step on the loose end and trip, causing a fall, a severe injury to both horse and/or rider may result.
Boots on the other hand have the advantage of being easily applied, and also have superior shock absorbing properties due to their construction. Typically boots are constructed of neoprene, vinyl plastisol, and/or a closed cell foam providing resiliency and cushioning. In addition, because of its superior fastening means, a boot is far less likely to come loose. Further, in the unlikely event it does work loose, the boot simply drops away without injuring either horse or rider.
Boots also have some very real disadvantages. Perhaps the most severe problem to date is the inability of boots of prior art design to effectively provide a uniform pressure around the full circumference of the horse's leg. More specifically, the lower leg of a horse includes a canon bone and two adjacent flexor tendons, the deep digital flexor and the superficial digital flexor, enclosed by a covering of skin. Due to this construction, the leg is an oblong shape with indentations on both sides between the canon bone and flexor tendons. Because of these indentations, the boot generally engages the leg at the front of the canon bone and the rear of the flexor tendons, leaving a gap on the sides. The resulting uneven pressure on the leg is less than ideal. First, such an arrangement fails to provide any effective lateral support for the flexor tendons. Second, such an arrangement may actually cause an injury by urging the flexor tendons toward the rear of the canon bone. Over time this condition may irritate and inflame the tendon leading to lameness.
One prior art method for addressing this problem is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,115,627 to Scott. The Scott patent discloses a boot including a two layer panel wherein the inner panel is of longer effective length than the outer panel. When wrapped tightly around the leg of a horse the "extra" inner panel material bunches, supporting the front of the flexor tendons by filling in the gaps between the canon bone and flexor tendons.
In practice, however, this method has proved unsatisfactory. Although the bunched material aligns within the gaps or indentations, the same amount of bunched material is forced into the indentations along the full length of the boot without regard to the natural contours of the horse's leg. Thus, an uneven application of pressure results. In addition, there is no method of increasing or decreasing the force exerted by the bunched material. Thus, the end result is still a boot that furnishes an unequal pressure distribution along and around the leg and a boot wherein the overall pressure characteristics are not effectively adjustable for a customized application. No other prior art reference provides a solution to these problems.
Thus, a need is identified for an athletic boot which fully supports the horse's leg. This new boot should include a support structure which fully compensates for any natural contours of the horse's leg, thus providing substantially uniform pressure around the full circumference of the horse's leg. This new boot should also allow the overall pressure applied to be fully adjustable to meet the needs of the horse for leg support.